A television program rating is a measure of the number of viewers watching a television program. Television program ratings are important for determining advertising revenue which can be charged for programs. Demographic analysis of rating information is important because programs intended for children desirably include advertisements for items of interest to children such as toys, while programs intended for adults desirably include advertisements for items of interest to adults such as automobiles and household products.
A cable television subscriber household generally includes one or more televisions with each television being associated with a cable network device such as a set-top-box (STB). STBs connect associated televisions to the network infrastructure of a cable television service provider. A STB provides programs received from the cable provider to the associated television for household members to view. A household member selects a channel using the STB and then the television receives programs associated with the selected channel from the cable provider via the STB.
Household members also provide Video-on-Demand (VOD) commands to the STB for receipt by the cable provider. VOD generally refers to a head-end based transmission of content from the cable provider to the households upon requests from the household members. A household member provides a VOD command to the STB in order to request that the cable provider deliver a program to the STB for viewing on the television. In this case, the STB transfers the VOD command to the cable provider which in turn provides the desired program to the STB for display on the television. VOD has transport controls like a video cassette recorder (VCR). VCR-type VOD commands enable household members to view programs on their own schedules. Such VOD commands include play, pause, fast forward, rewind, playback, etc. The cable provider controls programs displayed on the television accordingly in response to these VOD commands.
A method of collecting viewing data from a cable television subscriber household to determine program ratings includes connecting a monitor to each STB in the household. The monitor detects the channel to which the associated television is tuned and when each tune takes place. The monitor may also be configured to prompt a household member to identify him or herself as part of a program audience. The monitor provides the viewing data to a central office for use by a television program ratings provider. The ratings provider compares the viewing data with reference data which includes a list of programs available on each channel during given times. By comparing the tuned channels, i.e., the channels to which the television is tuned, to the programs available on those channels at the time, the ratings provider can determine the programs viewed by household members.
This viewing data collection method is performed on a sampled cross-section of households in a viewing area. The ratings provider uses the viewing data from the sampled households to determine program ratings. The sampled households are a subset of all households in the viewing area. The sampled households are chosen using methodological standards such that the subset represents the viewing behavior of all households in the viewing area. Typically, the sampled households have agreed to allow collection and use of their private viewing information.
Cable providers have expanded their pay-per-view (PPV) services into other areas of On-Demand and are using new digital compression technologies for distribution. As a result, a problem with the described viewing data collection method is that simply knowing channel positions and channel change times does not provide sufficient information regarding actual demand events that have been viewed.
A solution is to collect VOD usage data from the sampled households for the ratings provider to use in order to determine program ratings. VOD usage data of a household is indicative of programs and other VOD events that have been viewed by household members. The cable provider logs such VOD usage data as the cable provider streams programs to the STBs in the households. Thus, the ratings provider could obtain the VOD usage data for the sampled households from the cable provider to determine program ratings.
However, policies and regulations mandate that personally identifiable information be protected from scrutiny by unauthorized third parties. Anonymous information may be tracked and analyzed, but anonymous information provides reduced value because anonymity obscures links to demographic information. Sampling methods where certain sub-populations opt in and allow their usage to be tracked (i.e., the sampled households in a viewing area) provide the required demographic information, but to maintain statistical sample properties the identities of the subset within the larger population (i.e., all households in the viewing area) must remain anonymous. This complicates data collection from within larger data samples where household-specific identifying information is made anonymous.
Thus, a problem with the above-described solution of having the ratings provider obtain the VOD usage data for the sampled households from the cable provider is that the ratings provider has to keep private the sampled household identities. As such, the cable provider does not know the identities of the sampled households. Thus, to overcome this problem, the cable provider has to provide the ratings provider with the VOD usage data for all households in order for the ratings provider to have the VOD usage data for the sampled households.
However, a problem with this solution is that the ratings provider is not authorized to know the non-sampled household identities. Further, the cable provider does not want to provide the ratings provider with the VOD usage data of the non-sampled households as the ratings provider is not entitled to this information. Thus, the ratings provider is authorized to access the information (identity and VOD usage date) associated with the sampled households but is not authorized to access such information associated with the non-sampled households.
In sum, the ratings provider knows the sampled household identities. The cable provider has the information associated with all households in the viewing area. The ratings provider is authorized to obtain the information associated with the sampled households from the cable provider, but cannot tell the cable provider the sampled household identities. As a result, the cable provider has to provide the ratings provider with the information associated with all households in the viewing area in a manner which allows the ratings provider to access the information associated with the sampled households and which prevents the ratings provider from accessing the information associated with the non-sampled households.